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The Mirror up to Nature

  • How's It Going?

    Number of comments: 1
    Playwright Paul Mullin from Seattle issued a challenge to the audience when he accepted the Stranger's Genius Award in 2008. As Mullin writes on his blog, at least one person is keeping score:I began my acceptance by magnanimously allowing that Seattle was a pretty good theatre town. The crowd approved.' [...]
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    Posted: December 16, 2009, 4:19pm EST
    by Art

  • More on the BAM Streetcar

    Number of comments: 1
    Jonathan Kalb makes four observations over at HotReview, below is one of them:2. In all previous productions of Streetcar I'm aware of, the action as a whole was treated as a quasi-Darwinian struggle for survival between two opposing natures, a quietly epic showdown between rough and crude Stanley and refined' [...]
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    Posted: December 15, 2009, 9:44am EST
    by Art

  • Just A Comparison

    Number of comments: 0
    Jason Robards was originally cast as the title character in Herzog's Fitzcarraldo. Here is footage of Robards, followed closely by Klaus Kinski, who went on to make this role one of the most indelible performances in screen history. (Yes, that is Mick Jagger - his role as Fitzcarraldo's assistant was [...]
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    Posted: December 15, 2009, 9:07am EST
    by Art

  • File Under...Some Directors Should Just Write Their Own Play

    Number of comments: 0
    From John Lahr's review of the much-lauded Streetcar Named Desire directed by Liv Ullman. It is playing at BAM and stars Cate Blanchette as Blanche DuBois.Ullmann’s direction delivers so much pleasure that it’s a shame that, at the finale, she doesn’t deliver the play’s meaning. In her staging of the [...]
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    Posted: December 15, 2009, 8:50am EST
    by Art

  • Back to the Future?

    Number of comments: 0
    Ray Bradbury wrote a futuristic musical for Richard Laughton in the 1950's. It is receiving its premiere this January in California.The original plan in the mid-1950s was for Laughton and his wife, Lanchester, to perform the show, then titled "Happy Anniversary, 2116," as part of an evening of one-act musicals' [...]
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    Posted: December 15, 2009, 8:35am EST
    by Art

  • Thanks a lot...

    Number of comments: 1
    The New York Times talks about Steppenwolf's penchant for creating their own stars with Broadway transfers, rather than replacing casts with Hollywood A or B listers.The Chicago-born play A Steady Rain went on to box office success by casting megastars Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig for the New York production.But [...]
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    Posted: December 13, 2009, 12:25pm EST
    by Art

  • Increasing Accessibility

    Number of comments: 0
    At a Stagesource Town Meeting a few years back, a representative from the Blind and Deaf community took to the microphone and told the theatre community, very politely: "We don't need free tickets, (we can pay for our own,) we need accessibility!"Wheelock Family Theater here in Boston has been a' [...]
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    Posted: December 13, 2009, 10:30am EST
    by Art

  • NEA Survey

    Number of comments: 1
    The NEA's 2008 Public Participation in the Arts Survey is out.You can read the whole thing here.Percentage of US adults attending at least one non-musical play in 2008 - 9.4%. In 2002 the number was 12.3%. (Page 18.)They have an interesting section on Participation of the Arts through Electronic Media. [...]
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    Posted: December 10, 2009, 4:37pm EST
    by Art

  • Winter Sunrise, Wilmington, MA

    Number of comments: 0
    Winter Sunrise, Wilmington, MA, originally uploaded by arthennessey. [...]
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    Posted: December 07, 2009, 10:34pm EST
    by Art

  • Brustein - The More Things Change?

    Number of comments: 5
    Jenna Scherer has an interview with Robert Brustein, former Artistic Director and Founder of the ART in Cambridge.Here is Brustein on the current direction the ART is taking:I happen to have the annoying quality of being very faithful to an idea. I still believe that a company of resident actors [...]
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    Posted: December 03, 2009, 8:28am EST
    by Art

  • Speaking of Critical Sobriety...

    Number of comments: 6
    Timberlake Wertenbaker's latest, The Line, opened in London to mixed reviews. But there was something...in the air...and in the blood at this particular opening:Wertenbaker believes that the actors were not given a fair crack of the whip because many of the critics had spent the day being liberally wined and [...]
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    Posted: December 01, 2009, 11:10am EST
    by Art

  • Fill Every Seat!

    Number of comments: 0
    The Globe tells us about the almost miraclous recovery of the Reagle Players in Waltham:The problems began early this year, when a promised $100,000 state grant for the Reagle Players was slashed to $25,000 by budget cuts. Other donations and private grants also fell in the wake of the credit [...]
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    Posted: December 01, 2009, 9:58am EST
    by Art

  • What Standards, Intellectually, Should We Hold Critics To?

    Number of comments: 2
    Don Hall takes in a production of The Mystery of Irma Vep, and it prompts some questions about its current incarnations as compared to its origins. He concludes this way:There are those that will say that I'm taking a silly piece of theater, played for the laughs, too seriously.Chris Jones,' [...]
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    Posted: December 01, 2009, 9:31am EST
    by Art

  • The Endless Pleasures of Pull Quote Litigation

    Number of comments: 0
    This time from the West End theatre production of The Shawshank Redemption:It seemed the perfect way to draw in theatregoers: a sign outside Wyndham's containing a reviewer's quote, describing The Shawshank Redemption as "a superbly gripping, genuinely uplifting drama."Unfortunately, the phrase was about the Hollywood film, not the West End [...]
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    Posted: November 25, 2009, 11:35am EST
    by Art

  • Back from the Dead?

    Number of comments: 0
    Geoff Edgers has more on North Shore Music Theater's lifeline:William Hanney, who owns Theatre By the Sea in Rhode Island as well as the chain of 10 New England multiplexes known as Entertainment Cinemas, has reached a purchase agreement with Citizens Bank, which acquired the Beverly theater last month.“This theater [...]
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    Posted: November 25, 2009, 10:48am EST
    by Art

  • The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

    Number of comments: 0
    It seems everybody is under pressure these days. In London, Actor Ian Hart leapt from the stage to apparently attack an audience member:According to a witness, Hart, 45, best-known for playing Professor Quirrell in the Harry Potter films, "exploded with anger" during the curtain call of Speaking in Tongues at [...]
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    Posted: November 25, 2009, 10:17am EST
    by Art

  • The Etiquette of Leaving In Protest

    Number of comments: 1
    In the Guardian, critic Mark Lawson has a rollercoaster of feelings and thoughts after hearing an incredibly offensive bit of dialogue at a show.He stuck through the rest of the play, but it seems, even afterwards, he is stuggling with teh question of what he should have done.My first reaction [...]
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    Posted: November 20, 2009, 1:55pm EST
    by Art

  • Quote of the Day- On Writing by Committee

    Number of comments: 0
    "One man wrote War and Peace. It took 25 screenwriters to come up with The Flintstones' movie."- Joe Esterhas, The Devil's Guide to Hollywood' [...]
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    Posted: November 17, 2009, 10:50am EST
    by Art

  • Broadway After Dark

    Number of comments: 1
    After the closing of the rather traditional Neil Simon repertory of Brighton Beach Memoirs and Broadway Bound, all eyes will be watching Broadway's latest experiment, coming to us from the folks at Lincoln Center.Ladies and Gentlemen, put the kids to bed, because things get a little blue in Times Square [...]
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    Posted: November 17, 2009, 7:13am EST
    by Art

  • People Flower, Boston, MA

    Number of comments: 0
    People Flower, Boston, MA, originally uploaded by BradKellyPhoto.My friend, photographer Brad Kelly, can even make the Hynes Convention Center interesting. [...]
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    Posted: November 16, 2009, 11:54am EST
    by Art

  • Boston Theatre - Friday Roundup

    Number of comments: 0
    In case you were wondering if there is anything to see at the theater this weekend, the answer is yes!Opening :Paula Vogel's latest, A Civil War Christmas opens at the Huntington Theatre this weekend. The Globe's pre-show piece is here.Speakeasy Stage Company opens Craig Lucas's Reckless, billing it as their [...]
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    Posted: November 13, 2009, 9:39am EST
    by Art

  • Beware the TalkWrite Gossip!

    Number of comments: 17
    Back in September I posted a link to Rolando Teco's Extracriticum post on the open submission process at the O'Neill.Nick at RatSass posts today about how, it would appear, these allegations have not had any journalism to back them up, and, yet, somehow made their way around very quickly. Even' [...]
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    Posted: November 12, 2009, 11:09am EST
    by Art

  • Theatre's Responsibility

    Number of comments: 1
    Matt Trueman, writing in the Guardian blog, talks about seeing an esoteric piece of theatre involving Gone with the Wind and Hurricane Katrina. He felt a little lost:Even as I felt adrift in the piece, I was aware of the scalpel's presence, dissecting American history, culture and politics and holding [...]
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    Posted: November 11, 2009, 8:24am EST
    by Art

  • A New Way of Reviewing?

    Number of comments: 3
    Bill Marx at the ArtsFuse is trying a new type of reviewing system for Theatre:He is calling the new feature: The Judicial Review:The inspiration for the Judicial Review is the U.S. Supreme Court. Arts events will be evaluated by a local panels of “judges” who will post majority and dissenting [...]
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    Posted: November 08, 2009, 3:37pm EST
    by Art

  • Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA

    Number of comments: 0
    Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA, originally uploaded by BradKellyPhoto.My friend, photographer Brad Kelly took this yesterday. [...]
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    Posted: November 06, 2009, 9:50am EST
    by Art

  • What Type of Play Are You Writing? Part 4

    Number of comments: 1
    Continuing to think about the types of plays we see on our stages.Up to now, I think I am have been talking about generally recognizable types of plays and the comments have already included some excellent questions.After laying out the categories of Actual People - Actual World, Boundary Breaker and [...]
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    Posted: November 05, 2009, 12:24pm EST
    by Art

  • Brother Blue, Rest In Peace

    Number of comments: 1
    Sad news. Brother Blue, a fixture here in Boston, and just a genuine, positive presence, has passed on. CCTV has a post.He will be missed. [...]
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    Posted: November 04, 2009, 4:04pm EST
    by Art

  • What Type of Play Are You Writing? Part 3

    Number of comments: 3
    The last couple of days I have been thinking/writing out loud about the "types" of plays that we see on our stages. The first two types, Actual People - Actual World and Boundary Breaker, are most often created with multiple characters. This does not have to be the case though. [...]
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    Posted: November 04, 2009, 7:30am EST
    by Art

  • What Type of Play Are You Writing? Part 2

    Number of comments: 2
    Yesterday, I posted on plays which are populated by Actual People in the Actual World and which obey laws of time, space and emotion as we pretty much know and observe them to be in everyday life.Today, I want to talk about plays that twist that type of play a [...]
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    Posted: November 03, 2009, 12:00pm EST
    by Art

  • What Type of Play Are You Writing? Part 1

    Number of comments: 7
    Blogger 99 Seats wrote a post a bit ago that talks about "tricks" and conventions that go in and out of fashion with playwriting. Others bloggers have brought up the topic of genres. Screenwriters work within genres. Mastering or having knowledge of various genres is a very important part of [...]
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    Posted: November 02, 2009, 12:17pm EST
    by Art

  • Back to the Future - Salem, MA

    Number of comments: 0
    I got to sit in this DeLorean yesterday in Salem, MA. A couple is driving it cross country to raise Parkinson's awareness. [...]
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    Posted: November 01, 2009, 11:22am EST
    by Art

  • A Hollywood Ending for Stephanie Umoh

    Number of comments: 1
    The Globe did a three part series on Boston Conservatory student Stephanie Umoh a few years ago. It was a great series, and now it appears to have to be a happy ending!Today's Globe story begins with Umoh breaking down in tears at the meet and greet for the Broadway [...]
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    Posted: November 01, 2009, 10:14am EST
    by Art

  • "...and again, hark...louder...louder...louder "

    Number of comments: 0
    "...and again, hark...louder...louder...louder ", originally uploaded by arthennessey. [...]
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    Posted: October 31, 2009, 8:58am EDT
    by Art

  • Deja Vu, All Over Again

    Number of comments: 0
    Fellow blogger and friend Ian Thal recently got a part in one of the movies filming in Boston. He has a fun realization:Not only do I use Facebook, but I am in the Facebook movie.Earlier this week I was in a scene in the upcoming film about the creation of [...]
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    Posted: October 30, 2009, 1:17pm EDT
    by Art

  • In The Spirit of the Season

    Number of comments: 0
    1_2_148, originally uploaded by jrnyfanraleigh. [...]
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    Posted: October 29, 2009, 11:50am EDT
    by Art

  • Line!

    Number of comments: 0
    A New York Times article about prompters and learning lines.Seems an actor at Hartford Stage may have been caught using the Peter Brady method of remembering lines. (To be honest though, it appears there is a more to the story than is being reported.) But now the use of prompts [...]
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    Posted: October 29, 2009, 7:59am EDT
    by Art

  • Can You Hear Me, Now?

    Number of comments: 1
    Wall Street Journal article on miking actors in straight plays and using background tracks in musicals. (The end of the article contains some tracks for sound effects used in some Broadway plays.)Many theatergoers have come to expect the miking effect. Microphones on stage allow actors to speak more naturally, emulating [...]
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    Posted: October 23, 2009, 9:45am EDT
    by Art

  • Don't Forget Private Epstein

    Number of comments: 1
    David Edelstein makes some good points about Neil Simon, his popularity and his craft in a New York Magazine article.Here he talks about how Simon's dialogue, full of kvetching and always containing throwaway one-liners, sometimes all but defeated his characters and the actors playing them.Christopher Walken’s drill sergeant in the [...]
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    Posted: October 22, 2009, 9:53pm EDT
    by Art

  • The Shrew Can So Sew...

    Number of comments: 0
    Carl Rossi looks at Actors Shakespeare Project's Taming of the Shrew.Everything pivots on Kate’s character. She is not a career-woman with a life of her own; she is the elder daughter in her father’s house, resentful (and scared?) from being hounded into marrying so that her beloved sister Bianca may [...]
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    Posted: October 22, 2009, 10:20am EDT
    by Art

  • The Tightrope of Staging Birdie

    Number of comments: 0
    Ben Brantley on the Broadway revival of Bye Bye Birdie:But the show introduced Birdie and the electrified music he embodied only to renounce them. “Bye Bye Birdie” was always proudly old-fashioned at heart, promising that it was the happy book musical — and not rock ’n’ roll — that was [...]
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    Posted: October 16, 2009, 11:00am EDT
    by Art

  • Black Playwrights - Tour Guides of the Theatrical Landscape

    Number of comments: 8
    99 Seats talks a little about taking the temperature of the state of black theater in the United States. In an earlier post, he lamented how any discussion of this topic seems to immediately be perceived as complaining or a radical call to arms. Here he tries to tell of [...]
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    Posted: October 14, 2009, 4:39pm EDT
    by Art

  • On Pinter's Impotency

    Number of comments: 0
    Thomad Garvey reviews the Nora production of The Caretaker and finds the menace missing; but after seeing several recent Pinter's, which have also failed to deliver the chills, he is hesitant to blame the productions. But how to restore Pinter's former potency? Ah, there's the rub; the decline of "monoculture"' [...]
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    Posted: October 14, 2009, 1:53pm EDT
    by Art

  • Generations Collide

    Number of comments: 0
    Dame Judi Dench thinks young actors aren't paying enough attention to the older generations:"Probably the majority of young actors want to make a big impression in television or film straight away,” she told the Cheltenham Literature Festival"I wish that young people now — and it’s not very fashionable — learnt' [...]
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    Posted: October 13, 2009, 8:10am EDT
    by Art

  • WaterFire Providence

    Number of comments: 0
    WaterFire Providence, originally uploaded by arthennessey. [...]
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    Posted: October 12, 2009, 10:33am EDT
    by Art

  • Sarah Ruhl Tries to Answer Her Critics

    Number of comments: 2
    Boston Globe has a profile of Sarah Ruhl in advance of the Lyric Stage production of Dead Man's Cell Phone:Despite Ruhl’s success, she is not without her detractors. Some critics have accused her of an over-reliance on whimsical and idiosyncratic details that can come across as cloying. Others charge that [...]
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    Posted: October 10, 2009, 8:55pm EDT
    by Art

  • Ian Thal's Total War

    Number of comments: 1
    Total War Poster October 11, 2009, originally uploaded by Ian Thal.Fellow blogger Ian Thal will have a reading of his play Total War tomorrow at 8PM. This is a revision after Ian had another reading. You can read more about it on his blog. He is very open about the [...]
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    Posted: October 10, 2009, 12:00pm EDT
    by Art

  • "The eye was open! ... And I grew furious to gaze upon it."

    Number of comments: 4
    "The eye was open! ... And I grew furious to gaze upon it.", originally uploaded by arthennessey. "I resolved to open a little -- a very, very little crevice in the lantern. So I opened it -- you cannot imagine how stealthily, stealthily -- until at length a single dim" [...]
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    Posted: October 09, 2009, 11:08am EDT
    by Art

  • Arts Criticism - When It's Free, Does It Matter to People?

    Number of comments: 3
    Leonard Jacobs counters Norman Lebrecht's notion that "the public does not, on the whole value unsolicited opinion."Lebrecht uses the example of the culture pages of free newspapers - like the Metro, but Leonard brings up an excellent point: I would counter — and this argument can be found amongst the [...]
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    Posted: October 09, 2009, 8:23am EDT
    by Art

  • 90 Minutes

    Number of comments: 0
    Chris Jones in the Chicago Tribune doesn't believe there is really any standard for the length of a play, but he muses on how many plays seem to be clocking in at that hour and a half length.He talks about the recent premiere of Craig Wright's play, Mistakes Were Made.' [...]
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    Posted: October 08, 2009, 10:03am EDT
    by Art

  • Navigating Culture on the Net Surfboard

    Number of comments: 0
    Seth Godin on High, Low, Tech and Analog Culture (His post has a graph.)Our Culture (high and popular) is usually created by people who are happy with the systems the world has given them. Magazine editors don't spend a lot of time wishing for better technology. Opera singers focus more' [...]
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    Posted: October 07, 2009, 9:56am EDT
    by Art
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